Daley, who won his maiden world title at Rome 2009 when he was just 15 years old, led the standings in the 10m event from the first round. He then delivered five further stunning routines to secure gold.

"It's been such a tough year getting over that competition in Rio," said Daley.

"Today the Olympic champion was never going to let me have it easy but I wanted to fight until the very end and I really wanted to prove a point.

"I'm just so happy with the way it turned out. My score was a personal best and I think it would have got the gold last year at the Olympics.